[h1]Social Networks For Local SEO[/h1]
[callout2]Social Media is no longer just about being Social… almost every major network now offers dedicated Business pages, and a Social Media Presence is essential for any business that is serious about branding, marketing and SEO[/callout2]
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[slide name=”Social Marketing 101″]

In an online business situation, connecting and interacting with your customers has become essential, and most photographers seem to get that these days, even if they don’t always like it.

What you may not realise is that all these Social interactions… the Likes, the Shares, the Tweets, the visitor Comments and even your responses… are something Google uses to evaluate the value your website offers your target audience.

In the past they used to rely heavily on ‘backlinks’ for this kind if social proof, but nowadays they go straight to the source and equate all this social activity… or social signals… with credibility, authority and value.

They look for instances of people talking to you and even people talking about you, they consider where this is happening and how often it’s happening, and from that draw conclusions about the value and relevance of your website to your audience.

So first obvious conclusion here is, if you don’t have a social media presence, you won’t be generating any social signals, so you probably won’t even be noticed!

At the other extreme, by giving your visitors and customers a range of options to connect with you, you make it easier and more likely that they will in fact link to you, talk with you, mention your brand and maybe even give you a glowing recommendation.

Interestingly, in SEO terms, even a bad recommendation will add value to your web presence!

Google still sees it as a unique social signal, meaning you are relevant… so like the old adage about publicity… it appears there’s no such thing as a bad social signal either. At least not in an SEO context.

Of course the real substance we’re aiming for here is high quality social proof…

People interacting with you positively

Asking questions and getting helpful answers

Posting complimentary comments when you share photos or stories

Leaving good reviews and feedback

Whether you like it or not… whether you do it yourself or not… more and more people are looking for this kind of business profile before they’ll do business with you. Consumers have more options than ever before and they have all kinds of tools to research you before they choose to do business with you…

So you need to take steps to make sure that there’s good info there for them to find! You can’t force the positive comments, but when you set up a convenient social network, you make it easier and more likely your happy customers will help you out… especially if you generate some reciprocity by helping them out first!

On a more important to note… you can’t prevent the negative comments either.

So if you don’t have a social presence of your own, any negatives are going to be posted elsewhere, where you don’t have any sort of control over it. In some instances you might not even have the ability to respond. So it makes sense to make it easy for those people to post their comments and complaints on your network.

Social Media For SEO

So all of that is basically branding and customer relationships… which is essential, but not really what we’re dealing with here. Our focus in this Action Plan is SEO, and that is all about having a suitable network in place to generate social signals and valuable backlinks.

So what follows is simple a list of Social Media networks we’ve found to get the best SEO results. Your job in this section is simply to set up an account on each of them, link them to your website and link to them from your website.

In an ongoing context, you also need to encourage your visitors to connect and interact, and you also need to post fresh new content to most of these platforms. We’ve got some notes on that in the last panel.

For now, lets get started on Setting Up The Accounts…

As mentioned earlier, there is no step-by-step guide for these. Most will have their own wizard and if you follow their instructions you will get the basics covered quite painlessly.

We have however included a few notes on each platform regarding ‘why’ we use it and what it’s major advantage or benefit is, so make sure your set up is taking full advantage of that!

If you have some of these already, that’s great. Just check out notes and make sure your titles, links and content are all reflecting your new-found Local keyword phrases.

The most important one is, all accounts should use your Business Name. Don’t get clever with keywords, and definitely do not use your personal name… make sure these pages are all using your brand as a username.

If you’re pushed for time, we’ve put the most important at the top, so you can work your way down as time permits. As a minimum, I’d suggest you do the first 4 immediately, but for the best possible results, make plans to set them all up ASAP!

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[slide name=”Facebook Business Page”]

Facebook is included simply because it is the biggest of the lot. As a branding/marketing tool, your customers expect to find you there and it has huge internal search traffic, so more and more consumers are searching for goods and services from within Facebook.

From an SEO perspective, it’s size means all social signals and links from Facebook carry a lot of weight with the search engines, and as the biggest of all the platforms it’s easier to generate social signals via Facebook than anywhere else.

You need a Personal account before you can create a Business Page, but you can set that up with only the most basic info and pretty much ignore it after that. For our purposes, it’s all about your Business Page, so follow the link below to get started…

Photography Considerations:

Watermark your images. Facebook’s terms & conditions have upset a lot of photographers in the past, but if you simply put a brand/website watermark on your images, the issue is moot.

Use Collages. Facebook has strict rules about using text on your header image… too much and they consider it ‘advertising’… so use a mix of smaller images over the larger image, and none of the images will be big enough for unauthorised use.

Add Your Business Description Twice! You can use your shorter business description in the About section, then create a separate tab for a detailed description of your business, your services offers etc.

Add Your Business Milestones. A good way to get some content onto your page is to write a few ‘milestone’ posts… when you started, major assignments or clients, major projects, new premises, partners, equipments etc… all with a suitable sample image and keyword-rich article.

Make sure you’re connected #1. Make sure you add a link to your website and your other social profiles. This is easiest to do if you revisit every site when you’re done setting them all up, and make sure they all link to each other.

Also make sure you are linking to your Facebook Business page from your website!

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[slide name=”LinkedIn”]

LinkedIn is the standout Business social network. It offers extended business profiles, portfolios, blogging and a whole lot of ways to connect with suppliers, colleagues and customers.

It is heavily geared towards business-networking, and if you offer Business-to-Business services, it could be worth upgrading to a paid account, but at the very least, EVERY photographer should have a basic listing here. There are a lot of linking opportunities and the site’s stature means signals generated here are very high value.

Photography Considerations:

Add Lots Of Information. You get a lot of different places to describe your business, your services, your background and history etc that are a bit hard to appreciate during the sign up, so don’t spend too long on this while signing up. Get through that then explore a bit to get the lay of the land, and then go back and put in all your info.

Make sure you’re connected #1. Make sure you add a link to your website and your other social profiles. This is easiest to do if you revisit every site when you’re done setting them all up, and make sure they all link to each other.

Also make sure you are linking to your LinkedIn Business page from your website!

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[slide name=”Yelp”]

Yelp is a social-business directory where visitors are encouraged to leave reviews of local businesses they’ve dealt with. So it’s no surprise the social signals are very high-value, but equally important for our SEO efforts is that it also provides Google with a kind of social-confirmation that you do in fact offer services to customers in your location.

A lot of businesses don’t do this kind of local activity, so Google looks to sites like Yelp to help it filter those out from the true local businesses. So the take-away here is… if you AREN’T listed in these local directories, Google is probably going to assume you don’t offer services locally.

Photography Considerations:

Yelp could easily have gone in the next section, except for their emphasis on customer feedback and reviews, so we’re treating it as a social network instead. You should too! Sign up, complete your profile and make sure you respond any time you get a notification of activity!

Make sure you’re connected #1. Make sure you add a link to your website and your other social profiles. This is easiest to do if you revisit every site when you’re done setting them all up, and make sure they all link to each other.

Also make sure you are linking to your Yelp page from your website!

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[slide name=”FourSquare”]

FourSquare is another social-business directory, and while it started out mostly dealing with restaurants and bars, these days it covers everything… so you need to be found there. all the same benefits apply here as they do at Yelp, so set this up and monitor all activity so you can respond promptly to any comments or reviews.

Photography Considerations:

Yelp could easily have gone in the next section, except for their emphasis on customer feedback and reviews, so we’re treating it as a social network instead. You should too! Sign up, complete your profile and make sure you respond any time you get a notification of activity!

Make sure you’re connected #1. Make sure you add a link to your website and your other social profiles. This is easiest to do if you revisit every site when you’re done setting them all up, and make sure they all link to each other.

Also make sure you are linking to your FourSquare page from your website!

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[slide name=”Twitter Page”]

Twitter has really come of age in the last few years… and despite all the rubbish posted by celebrities, more and more businesses are finding it a valuable platform for connecting with their customers.

It’s also a super-easy option to ‘automate’ and great for generating visitor traffic, so it’s long been one of my favourites… though to be honest, I doubt I login more than 2-3 times a year!

Photography Considerations:

Background Images Are Optional. A lot of photographers post nice photos as a background, but they need to be quite large… so theft is a risk, and your Twitter visitors can see much of them anyway… so I would avoid that, or else use a very stylized low-res version, and focus on showcasing my images in my feed instead.

Make sure you’re connected #1. Make sure you add a link to your website and your other social profiles. This is easiest to do if you revisit every site when you’re done setting them all up, and make sure they all link to each other.

Also make sure you are linking to your Twitter page from your website!

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[slide name=”Google Plus”]

Google+ has grown into a powerful & professional, feature-rich social network and is very popular with photographers. It’s not as big as Facebook yet, but the audience it does reach is better suited to business networking and it offers a great tool set.

It should come as no surprise that Google trusts it’s own social network more than any other when assessing social signals, so it makes a lot of sense to have a presence here.

Photography Considerations:

Watermark Your Images & Use Collages. There’s a lot of photographers posting a lot of really big photos on Google+… I’ve opened shots that were 4 or 5 times the size of my screen!… so it’s earned a tongue-in-check reputation as the web’s best free stock library!

So use some common-sense to protect your work… keep your images screen-size, add watermarks and use text overlays and collages for your header image.

Connect Your Google Accounts. You will need a personal account to set this up, but you probably had to set that up to use the Keyword Planner already? Either way, it is highly recommended as we’ll also be using Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools later on.

Make sure you’re connected #1. Make sure you add a link to your website and your other social profiles. This is easiest to do if you revisit every site when you’re done setting them all up, and make sure they all link to each other.

Also make sure you are linking to your Google+ page from your website!

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[slide name=”YouTube”]

One thing most people miss about YouTube is that you don’t need to post your own videos to have a page, or a Channel as they call it. If you do, that’s great, but you can enjoy 90% of the SEO benefits of YouTube without ever posting single video of your own!

And the benefits are big… Google own YouTube so it treats it well. It ranks videos in the Google Search results almost instantly and gives links in and out of YouTube a lot of weight. No surprise, any comments, shares, likes and subscribers on your YouTube page also carry a lot of weight.

If you’re not interested in posting videos, you can still set up an account and create your own Channel and simply share and comment on other people’s videos and this will give you some valuable backlinks to your website. You’ll get much better results however, if you ‘add value’, so a better option is to create Playlists of good videos of interest to your customers & prospects.

Pick a subject and find a good selection of related videos.

Add a detailed description with some additional information.

Add a link to additional related content on your website.

Add lots of relevant keywords to help people find it.

What you’ve done is add value so the playlist is worth more to the viewer than the sum of the parts… you’ve saved the viewer time, added extra information and linked to a useful resource…

For now, set up your YouTube account using the link below, and then have a look at the page below that for some excellent customization tips

Photography Considerations:

Create Your Own Content! As good as curated content can be, you can’t beat posting original content and most photographers should be able to create their own video content without too much trouble… slideshow videos, promo videos etc… so it really would be worth your while to create and post one of these a few times a year! In between that you can curate other people’s videos, but the original content will work wonders!

Make Relevant Playlists. Look over your keyword list and pick suitable phrases to build playlists around. Find 5-10 videos on the topic and add a detailed, keyword-rich description. You can then include links from your playlist description to relevant pages on your website… and you get authority links and SEO relevance in one!

Make sure you’re connected #1. Make sure you add a link to your website and your other social profiles. This is easiest to do if you revisit every site when you’re done setting them all up, and make sure they all link to each other.

Also make sure you are linking to your YouTube Channel from your website!

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[slide name=”Pinterest”]

Photographers seem to either love Pinterest… or else they hate it with a passion! The storyboard approach can get a little too close to outright image theft for some photographers, while others see it as a valuable creative tool that graphic artists and designers obviously like to use.

We don’t do a lot with Pinterest at GlobalEye, but we still manage to generate a steady flow of visitor traffic from our account, and there’s no question the social signals are quite high-value. So love it or hate it, I would recommend you set up an account, create a few boards of your own and share a few watermarked low-res sample images…

Photography Considerations:

Make Separate Board For Your Main Keywords. Pinterest Boards are just pages where you group content relevant to a specific subject. So be sure to create a board for each of your Primary and Secondary Keyword Phrases. Don’t worry about the location details so much, but definitely make sure your main fields of work are covered!

Check What Other Photographers Are Doing! There are a lot of pro photographers getting very creative with Pinterest and generating a lot of interest, which usually translates into traffic, leads and sales. If you’re new to Pinterest, I would recommend you take some time to take a good look through the site, see what other photographers in your field are doing with the platform and see if there’s any that might work for you as well?

Make sure you’re connected. Make sure you add a link to your website and your other social profiles. This is easiest to do if you revisit every site when you’re done setting them all up, and make sure they all link to each other.

If you don’t want to encourage ‘pinning’ of your images, there’s no real need to link to to your Pinterest page from your website, but you should connect it to your other social profiles so people can find it!

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[slide name=”Instagram”]

Finally, I’m going to mention Instagram here, even though we’ve only just started using it ourselves and we haven’t got any results to back this up… yet. It does however use some Geo-Location tagging, that I believe COULD be quite useful for your local search listings.

Basically if your Instagram photos are tagged with your business location, and that account mentions your business brand name and links to your website page, my gut-feeling is that Google is more than capable of connecting the dots, and viewing your website as a relevant content source for that location.

So this one is a little experimental, but if you’re up for it, set up an account below and we’ll keep testing it ourselves and let you know any developments…

Photography Considerations:

Keep It Simple. This one is purely a test to see if the Geo-Tagging is any value, so set it up, link to your account and then load a selection of sample images. Tag each image with one of your main keywords, your location, and your brand name, and see how it goes.

Check What Other Photographers Are Doing! I’ve spotted a few pro photographers here who seem to be taking it pretty seriously, so you can assume they’ve found a formula that works for them… if it interests you and suits your style of work & business model, you might want to explore a bit and look for other other ways to put the platform to use!

Make sure you’re connected. As always, make sure you add a link to your website and your other social profiles. This is easiest to do if you revisit every site when you’re done setting them all up, and make sure they all link to each other.

No need to link to to your Instagram page from your website, but connect it to your other social profiles so people can find it!

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[slide name=”Connecting & Automating”]

Once you’ve set up all your accounts, the last essential step is to make sure they are all connected. If you added your various URLs to your Scrapbook file as you created each new account, it should just be a matter of logging back int to each platform, and adding your links.

A final step you might want to consider at some stage is to set up automated posting to your social accounts. If you have a blog of some description, this is actually quite easy. You just take your blog’s RSS Feed and connect that to a publishing solution like OnlyWire, and have that repost your blog content automatically to each of your social profiles.

Your can check out our Anti-Social Marketing package here, for our Photography-Specific guide & training package that lets you run a powerful & professional social marketing campaign in just 30 minute a week!